Gabriel Estuardo García Luna He arrived at the headquarters of the Public Ministry, in Gerona, zone 1 of the capital, at 11:30 p.m. on May 16, to take office after midnight as the new attorney general and head of the MP for the period 2026-2030, replacing María Consuelo Porras Argueta, who led the institution since 2018.
The arrival of García Luna occurs after an application process marked by challenges and questions about exclusions.
While the change in the leadership of the investigative entity was taking place, citizens and members of civil organizations remained during the night and early morning in front of the MP headquarters, in zone 1 of the capital, to celebrate the departure of Porras and the beginning of the new management.
In Quetzaltenango, activities and concentrations of citizens also took place who expressed support for the change of authorities in the Public Ministry.
The new attorney general was appointed on May 5 by President Bernardo Arévalo, who then assured that the institution “requires leadership that will rescue it to strengthen itself and respond to the expectations and demands of citizens.”
Arévalo stated that the designated person “is not at the service of the president or the Government, but rather serves the nation.”
García Luna was part of the final list of six candidates prepared by the Nomination Commission on April 21 and 25. In that phase he obtained 15 votes from the commissioners and was positioned among the best evaluated profiles.
The commission completed the list after several discussions about the minimum scores and the inclusion of candidates close to the required point. In that vote, the then attorney general, Consuelo Porras, was left off the final list.
First appointments
García Luna began to integrate the team who will accompany him in the new MP administration. Among the first appointments are Edwin Santiago Chavajay Chavajay, who will take over as secretary general of the Public Ministry; Shirley García Ovalle, appointed Secretary of International Affairs and Cooperation, and Rony López Galindo, who will direct the Secretariat of Information Technology, as confirmed to Prensa Libre by sources close to the new administration.
Chavajay Chavajay is a criminal lawyer and currently works as a Criminal Law advisor to the Attorney General’s Office since 2024. He was also part of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice between 2021 and 2023 and has taught university teaching at the Rafael Landívar University.
García Ovalle developed his career in the Judicial Branch, where he coordinated projects financed with international cooperation and held positions related to international relations and execution of institutional projects.
López Galindo has more than 20 years of experience in information technology and technological project management. He currently coordinates the Services Operation Unit of the IT Management of the Judicial Branch.
According to the MP, a press conference is scheduled for May 17 to make the new appointments official.
García Luna’s job proposal
During the interview phase, García Luna focused your proposal in institutional independence, transparency, modernization and strengthening of care for victims.
“The Public Ministry is an independent and autonomous institution, so it should not receive external instructions and must act free of political and other pressures,” he assured.
“You must act for or against the accused according to the evidence and zero external interference,” he also stated.
Another of the axes of his proposal was to regain citizen trust through improvements in the reception and monitoring of complaints.
“Manage to generate trust in the population through the improvement of all mechanisms, not only for receiving complaints, but also the treatment given to each complaint,” he assured.
At the operational level, he proposed strengthening criminal investigation through multidisciplinary teams, technical coordination and technological modernization.
“Everything is aimed at selective and intelligent criminal prosecution, prioritizing cases with high social impact while continuing to provide proportional follow-up to the rest of the crimes that affect the population,” he stated.
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Regarding the use of resources, he proposed first evaluating institutional results before proposing budget expansions.
“The first thing that should be done is an evaluation of the results that are being given (…) that is the first parameter versus the financial resource that is being assigned,” he said.
He also questioned possible imbalances in infrastructure and territorial coverage of some tax agencies.
“Leases could be reviewed, for example. I agree that there is a fiscal presence in Guatemala, but in some cases the infrastructure or rent does not match the amount of population and, therefore, crime in a municipality. So, we have large fiscal agencies, with high costs, while a peace court is quite small and its own,” he explained.
Attention to victims and prosecutorial career
During his presentation, García Luna also questioned practices related to caring for victims and handling complaints.
“Attention to the victim has been neglected and the response has been given more as per legal requirement, mainly with rejections,” he said.
In addition, he criticized quick rejections of complaints without preliminary investigations.
“That is a treatment that is not for the victims (…) without even a phone call or the minimum of an investigation,” he said.
Another point he addressed was the fiscal race and the perception of blockages within the system.
“We have a large number of prosecutors who have resigned, or have been dismissed, but cases of resignation, a couple of resignations that I know of, were because they received orders to dismiss complaints, in this case of violence against women, from previous years,” he pointed out.
Career of the new attorney general of the MP
García Luna has more than 25 years of career within the Judicial Branch.
He entered technical positions in 1997 and later was an officer, secretary, justice of the peace, judge of first instance and courtroom magistrate in the criminal area.
Between 2014 and 2019 he was a member of the Mixed Regional Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Cobán, Alta Verapaz.
In addition, he chaired the Judicial Disciplinary Board between 2016 and 2023, a body in charge of hearing administrative misconduct by justice operators. During that period, Judge Rocío Murillo was suspended for 20 days without pay for actions related to the Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción case.
García Luna, before being appointed as attorney general, was a substitute member of that board and also a criminal advisor in the top office of the Attorney General’s Office since 2024.